An Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi, and Through the Western Parts of Louisiana, to the Sources of the Arkansaw, Kans, La Platte, and Pierre Jaun, Rivers

Source:

Pike, Zebulon. An Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi, and Through the Western Parts of Louisiana, to the Sources of the Arkansaw, Kans, La Platte, and Pierre Jaun, Rivers; Performed by Order of the Government of the United States duing the Years 1805, 1806, and 1807, and a Tour through the Interior Parts of New Spain, when Conducted through These Provinces, by Order of the Captain General, in the Year 1807. By Major Z.M. Pike. Illustrated by Maps and Charts. (Philadelphia: Published by C. & A. Conrad, & Co.; Somervell & Conrad; Bonsal, Conrad and Co.; and Fielding Lucas, Jr., 1810).

Pages/Illustrations:

509 / 20 (19 of tables)

Citable URL:

www.americanjourneys.org/aj-143/

Author Note

Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1779-1813) was born in New Jersey
where his father, a career military officer, was fighting the
British under George Washington. As the son of a professional
soldier, Pike grew up in
posts all across the Ohio frontier before joining the service
himself at fifteen. He was made a lieutenant at age of twenty, in 1799, and
was at Kaskaskia in 1803 when Meriwether Lewis came through to
recruit some of his troops for the famous overland expedition to
the Pacific.

Pike’s career after the expeditions described in this
document was brief. Promoted to major in 1808, during the War of
1812 he was made first a colonel and then a general. While
commanding an attack on York (modern Toronto), Pike was killed
on April 27, 1813, when the enemy detonated hidden explosives
under his advancing troops.

1805-1806 Expedition to the North

In the summer of 1805, Pike was ordered to explore the upper
Mississippi River, where English fur traders from Canada were
reported to be working illegally on American soil. Pike headed
north on August 9, 1805, in a seventy-foot keelboat and on September
23 reached modern Minneapolis, Minnesota. After wintering
further upriver and contacting British traders, raising the
American flag over their fort, and meeting with Dakota Indians,
the expedition returned to St. Louis on April 30, 1806.

1806-1807 Expedition to the Southwest

Pike remained in St. Louis only a few weeks before being sent
to reconnoiter the Spanish borderlands in order to ascertain the
southern limits of the recent Louisiana Purchase. The political
intrigue among Spain, Britain, and the U.S. that surrounded this
trip, including treasonous espionage by Pike's superiors, is
discussed in the National Park Service Web article cited below.

Pike left for the Southwest on July 15, 1806, with
twenty-three men.
They headed west up the Missouri River to the Osage country at
the border of modern Kansas and then, led by Osage guides,
reached a Pawnee village near the border of Kansas and Nebraska.
From here they turned south to the Arkansas River which they
followed west, reaching present-day Pueblo, Colorado, on
November 23, and the South Platte on December 12. They wintered
near modern Alamosa, Colorado, until on February 26, 1807, they
were captured by Spanish troops. The Spanish confiscated Pike’s
notes and carried the party through Albuquerque and El Paso, and
ultimately to Chihuahua, Mexico. There the authorities, not
wanting to provoke an international incident, ordered Pike and
the remnants of his expedition returned to U.S. soil. They
traveled through San Antonio, Texas, to Natchitoches, Louisiana,
where they arrived on July 1, 1807. Because of political
tensions, no Americans would again explore the Southwest until
the Stephen Long Expedition of 1820 (see AJ-144).

Document Note

Because Pike’s papers were taken by Spanish authorities, he
wrote his account from memory without access to notes kept on
the trail. His book is therefore often vague or mistaken about
exact locations, dates, and events, and his route was only
traced accurately by later scholars. The editions prepared by
Elliot Coues (1895) and Donald Jackson (1965) provide hundreds
of annotations that clarify obscure passages in the original.
The book was not a success; its Philadelphia publisher went
bankrupt and Pike received no royalties. Foreign editions were
more popular, with versions published in London in 1811, Paris
in 1812, Amsterdam in 1812-13, Weimar in 1813, and Vienna in
1826.